Guest Houses In Vietnam

West Lake (Ho Tay) is the largest lake in Hanoi, with a 17 km shoreline around 500 hectares of water in Tay Ho district. It is free to visit and open around the clock. Tran Quoc Pagoda, Hanoi's oldest, sits on an islet on its south-east shore, a 15-minute drive (about 3 km) from Hoan Kiem Lake and the Old Quarter. Give it t...

The Temple of Literature (Van Mieu) is Hanoi's Confucian temple, founded in 1070, and in 1076 it became the home of Vietnam's first university, the Quoc Tu Giam. It stands at 58 Quoc Tu Giam Street, about 2 km west of Hoan Kiem Lake. The gates open from 8 am to 5 pm every day, Mondays included. Adults pay 70,000 VND (about ...

One Pillar Pagoda (Chua Mot Cot) is a small wooden Buddhist shrine that sits on a single stone pillar in a lotus pond, inside the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex in Ba Dinh, Hanoi. Emperor Ly Thai Tong built it in 1049. French forces destroyed it in 1954, and it was rebuilt in 1955. Foreign visitors pay 25,000 VND (about Rs 9...

In the old quarters of the capital city, Hanoi sits the ancient Hoan Kiem Lake, which translates to the Vietnamese language as ‘Lake of the Returned Sword’. This moniker has a famous legend behind it, which is often the storyline of numerous water puppetry shows in the Thong Lang Water Puppet Theatre.

The legend says that...

Hanoi's Old Quarter (Pho Co) is the tangle of 76 streets, still called the "36 streets", that starts at the north shore of Hoan Kiem Lake. It is free and open 24 hours. Give it three to four hours on foot, and if you can, come on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday evening, when the streets around the lake close to traffic and the...